


cold & lost

by leere



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sad, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-14 22:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14145690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leere/pseuds/leere
Summary: Haven't written new FOB or bandom fic in over a year, but I wrote this a few nights back at two am in about twenty minutes, while feeling particularly existential. Thought it was worth sharing. Didn't edit it at all, aside from grammar. Listen tothiswhile you read, if you want. It's what I listened to while writing it. Amplifies the loneliness. Be sure to loop it; it's short.This is set in '07. The boys aren't like this anymore.





	cold & lost

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't written new FOB or bandom fic in over a year, but I wrote this a few nights back at two am in about twenty minutes, while feeling particularly existential. Thought it was worth sharing. Didn't edit it at all, aside from grammar. Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuGUKPaGhas) while you read, if you want. It's what I listened to while writing it. Amplifies the loneliness. Be sure to loop it; it's short.
> 
> This is set in '07. The boys aren't like this anymore.

"Patrick," he says. "Do you think the world knows we're here?"

Patrick folds his hands in his lap. When Pete's like this, it's best to just listen, and let him get it out, even if he hardly understands. Best friend duties. He usually doesn't mind. "What do you mean?"

"We've been on a hundred magazines, and we'll be on a hundred more. But does it - does it  _mean_ anything? We're, like, moments. That's all we are." Pete stares at the ground. "I guess it scares me how unimportant we are. How easily people could just - forget about us."

"Don't think like that, dude. What'd your therapist say about being negative?"

"It's hard not to be. 'Cause I see the fans out there, and there's so damn many. Because there's so, so many people. We're just four dudes that got lucky, that's the only reason we're on that stage every night. Do we even deserve to be?"

"Stop it, Pete. We worked hard to get where we are. We're sharing our music and helping people, that's an honorable thing."

Pete shakes his head. "It's not enough. In a hundred years, no one will remember us."

"Beethoven died two hundred years ago, and people still talk about him."

"That's not what I mean." Pete looks at his hands just then, stares at the fronts and backs. "Hands are fucking weird, dude. Like, these are mine."

Patrick laughs, a little uneasily. At least this is a less heavy subject. He was starting to get kinda bummed out himself. "Yeah, they're kinda dumb looking, too, huh?"

"They make magic, though. Like, hands are good for all kinds of shit. Making music, and making love, and making things." Pete stares some more. "And destruction."

Patrick purses his lips at Pete's negativity rearing its head once more. "They do more good than bad, I think."

"We're fucking nothing."

"Pete-"

"It scares me, Patrick. I wanna - I wanna _exist_ more."

Sometimes there's a point where Patrick gets annoyed at Pete's blatherings. He's reached that point. "Fucking do something about it then."

Pete goes silent at that. He regards his hands again, for a short moment, before putting his head in them. He looks small; fragile. "I just - I want quiet. I want it to stop. It's - it's a lot. It's too much."

"Breathe, Pete." Patrick's sympathetic again, and he reaches over to rub his friend's back, feels his shuddery breaths. "You're alive. That's enough. Be grateful for it."

"I wish I could. Fuck, I wish I could. I wish - I - I don't like being me." His voice has been shaky for a while now, but now he dissolves into sobs. "I don't like being me."

Patrick wraps his arms around Pete when he falls into him, holds him close as he falls apart. "It's okay, Pete," he says, as reassuringly as he can. "It's okay."

So weird, he thinks, how Pete's so double-sided. Just two hours ago, he was jumping up and down on the couch and badly singing Britney Spears. They joke it's because he's a Gemini. Pete says it's because he's fucked up. Patrick doesn't know, and he doesn't really care. Pete's Pete. He wouldn't be himself without all his complexities.

The fans will never see this side of him. They get glimpses via their songs, but they'll never see this broken down man with their own eyes. They see the confidence, the vanity, the fun. They don't see the doubt, the pain, the insecurity.

Patrick feels it too, sometimes. It weighs on his chest on quiet nights, like an anchor made of melancholia. It harshly hugs his heart, cruelly cradles his mind. It's not pleasant. He sympathizes with Pete, who feels it much more frequently and intensely.

"It'll be okay," Patrick lies softly, for the thousandth time, as if either of them believe it will. How stupid it is, to console someone with promises of blue skies. As if someone with pain on the brain could even fathom better days.

"It'll be okay," he says again, because that lie is all they have to hold onto.


End file.
